Teachers who work with students with autism are constantly looking for strategies to improve communication skills, especially for students who are nonverbal. In the past, we have used sign language, Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS), and incredibly expensive augmentative devices to promote communication. So the advent of the iPad appears to be a godsend in terms of communication. You can buy apps that are designed specifically for being used as a communication system for our nonverbal students, the iPad is typically highly motivating for students, and communication apps range in price from $150-$250. That’s a steal compared to the thousands of dollars once spent on devices in a pre-iPad world.

Did you ever find yourself pinching to zoom a paper map, or tapping and holding on an unfamiliar word in a newspaper trying to pop up a dictionary definition? It always ends in frustration, no? Not anymore. Not the second one, anyway: Meanings is an app that lets you use the iPhone’s camera to look up up real-world words in the fake-world dictionary.